Thursday, April 10, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Cover story: Under cover

Some of the most original acts in town don't play original music

By Andrew Kiraly

The best testament to the popularity of tribute band Yellow Brick Road isn't the Bud Light-and-Marlboro crowd spilling out of the showroom at the Suncoast. It isn't the dance floor packed ass-to-ass with everyone from creaky nostalgia hounds to lounge-crawling hotties to axe-worshipping stoners who follow guitarist Mark Cole's fretwork. It isn't even the half-joking handmade signs that hardcore fans hoist in the air in praise of lead singer Brody Dolyniuk. It's the fact that all this Saturday night energy is getting poured out like cheap beer on a Tuesday. Indeed, take your mind off work tomorrow, watch the bodies shimmy and pull from a bottle of domestic, and it's easy to get lost in the party-hearty vibe.

"That's what I love about these guys, they're insanely high-energy, but it's very natural for them," says fan Frank Weichel, a commercial painter who braved the prospect of having to get up at 5 a.m. tomorrow in order to catch YBR. "And you can tell they actually practice their songs."

In other words, Yellow Brick is a cover band that's, well, good.

"Believe me, there's an immense amount of detail work that goes into the band," says Dolyniuk after the show, when band members gather in the dressing room to decompress and pound bottled water. "The stereotype is that cover bands, or tribute bands or whatever you want to call them, that they're just musicians with Top 40 syndrome pumping out the same old tired material six nights a week. That image doesn't apply to us. We try to make the songs our own. We don't cut corners. And we do our homework."

Serious talk from a man who finished up a 2 1/2-hour set with a rendition of "Crazy Train" that had him trundling on stage as a tongue-in-cheek version of the Ozzman, complete with black hesher wig and wheelchair. But it's a serious point. Dolyniuk's observation about the band sparks an hour-long convo about a variety of topics that orbit close to these musicians' hearts: the art, craft and science of performing music not their own, the perhaps overblown importance of "original music" (and, just as probably, the overinflated myth of The Artist), and the enduring stigma of--the music gods forbid!--performing in a casino lounge or showroom.

In recent years, the phenom has spread faster than a groupie. In the early '90s, Vegas witnessed McDisco franchise Boogie Knights and retro-cheese like Loveshack install themselves into lounges and nightclubs, and the momentum generated by such tribute bands has only grown.

"My suspicion is that the popularity of tribute bands is largely driven by the Boomer generation," says Matt Wray, a sociologist at UNLV. "So much happening in the late '80s to the early '90s was when that generation was targeted as a market because of their enormous purchasing power, and that market was pretty well exploited by these local and regional nostalgia acts."

This is not a story about those bands. Rather, it's about those handful of tribute, cover and lounge bands who prize music over markets, who pour just as much heart and soul--and, in the case of Richard Cheese, devious perversion--into their acts as bands performing original tunes.

Considering the current local musicscape, perhaps even more heart and soul. What will local bands play this weekend? Most likely, something catchy, something likeable, something nice enough--and something completely forgettable. While the local music scene sputters along in ho-hum fashion, with few bands offering anything startling or even just fresh, where do you look for music with real punch? Maybe it's time to order a sidecar at the casino bar and catch some of the valley's more distinctive tribute and cover bands, ones that bring some truly original spirit to other people's music.

"It isn't easy. Tribute artists need to encompass all aspects of the original band, including stage mannerisms and musical style," says Lenny Mann, webmaster for Tributecity.com, a Ventura, Calif.-based site that hosts almost 1,000 professional tribute bands; Mann himself is guitarist for Led Zepagain. "The tribute artists also need to convey the onstage chemistry that made the original band so successful. All of the musicians in Led Zepagain, for instance, have studied and perfected the art of matching the musical styles of their counterparts. So even when we improvise, we actually sound like the original band."

Maybe learning the old stuff is as original a feat as penning a new song.

"When people ask us if we do any of our own original music, I'm always a little perplexed," says Yellow Brick Road bassist David St. John. "The assumption is that if you're not doing original music, that you're somehow less of a band. But between the creativity and craftsmanship we try to bring to our show, there's definitely something noble about it."

Art of the Vargas

Or something freewheeling, sassy and irreverent. That's the vibe pumped forth like champagne from Art Vargas on a recent Saturday night, as he works through a rendition of "Love Potion #9," mopping his face at intervals with his trademark silk handkerchief. Ironymongers beware: There's not a whiff of camp about it, just an exuberance and sweet-natured hamminess that Vargas manages to carry into the songs, which on this night range from Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon," to Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man"--accented with a ballroom eyemask--to Billy Swan's gently swinging "I Can Help." In a casinoscape studded with safe "bands" pumping out Top 40 prefab nostalgia to click-tracks, Vargas' show stands out like an exotic cocktail bristling with umbrellas. The schtick is there is no schtick. Backed by his band The Swank Set, Vargas' interpretations of the classics are earnest and energetic; little wonder that the Indigo Lounge at Bally's draws a fair share of casino-crawlers who strain to catch a glimpse of the show from outside the lounge. Even the security guards crane their necks for an earful. By the show's end at 11 p.m., a gaggle of Spring Breakers mobs the stage for some Vargas time.

That populist appeal only confirms the universal appeal of the songs, Vargas says after the show. He's sitting cross-legged on a couch in his dressing room, peppering his conversation with words like "cats" and "swanky"--and sounding completely cool.

"These songs are a big part of history," he says. "This is the Great American Songbook. There's a reason these songs persist. They cover some of the universals--love lost, love found, everything in between--and they never fail to affect your emotions. That's why I've always been attracted to the old stuff. There's a certain place these songs take you to that not many kinds of music can do."

And Vargas insists that he heeds their call every night he performs. That explains, in part, the popularity of his show: Between the emotions he mines and his own interpretation of the songs--whether it's a funkified version of "Goldfinger," say, or an extra handful of vocal grit tossed into Elvis standard "Now or Never," lending it an extra dimension of desperation--listeners know he's not faking it.

"Every time I do these songs, it's almost like the emotion of the songs takes me to another place," he says. "I don't think it's something you can be taught. I think it's something you're born with, you're blessed with. It's never, like, 'Oh, great, here comes another night.' I'm never going through the motions. It's never routine. And the audience is smart. They know if you're faking it."

Dispensing with set lists and routines, he says he develops a song roster on the spot by gauging the tastes and temperament of the crowd. On this balmy March night, Vargas serves the mixed crowd a main course of jazz and R&B standards with a side of more lighthearted '60s pop. "It's all based on the energy I'm getting from the crowd," Vargas says. "If they're laid back, I might do the crooner thing. If they're a bit more energetic, I'll throw in something funky. I never know, but I enjoy the unexpected. Either way, there's definitely an art and a craft to interpreting these songs. If you do it the right way, the demographic will come. I've proven that."

And it was something he had to prove. After deciding in the early '90s to split from his gig as a Bobby Darin impersonator in Imperial Palace's "Legends in Concert," Vargas did the audition rounds among casino entertainment directors, who confronted him with a chorus of their own.

Says Vargas: "Some of them told me, 'Nobody wants to hear that stuff. It's old! Go rock, go Top 40, go country, but for heaven's sake don't do those musty old tunes. I was really frustrated in those early years."

Just as the last door was politely slammed in his face, the retro craze hit Vegas in a flurry of zoot suits and swing bands that formed seemingly overnight. Suddenly Gen X was doing the Charleston in high-soled creepers, as bands like Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy garnered airplay with songs about high-class swinger shenanigans. What might've been a boon to the struggling Vargas turned out to be another roadblock; now he wasn't authentic enough. "Then entertainment directors wanted me in a zoot suit and two-tone shoes," he says. "Why, so I could look like a clown?"

Vargas got the last laugh, though. In 1993, he landed his first gig as Vargas at the now-defunct Maxim Hotel under the moniker Art Vargas & Two Sweet (his two female backup singers). Ten years later, while the zoot suits are gathering dust on vintage clothing store racks, Vargas has proved his staying power with solid interpretations of road-tested classics--particularly nowadays, when the retro craze has simmered down enough to where the seekers of swank are true of heart. "People want a taste of that old Vegas glamour," he says. "And these songs will always provide that."

Smells like Cheese spirit

At the other end of the lounge universe--and the city--throbs the dark comic heart of lounge music's spirit of excess, Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine. Anyone still clamoring that the Age of Irony is over should order a Cosmopolitan and watch irony--and its fraternity of camp, sarcasm and lowbrow humor--rear its head with all the ferocity of a vodka hangover. Holding court at Sunset Station beginning again next month, Cheese--or just "Dick"--takes all those angsty hits of today and yesterday, from Beck's "Loser" to Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness" to, okay, Sisqo's "Thong Song," and wrings them through a schmaltzy lounge sound and sensibility till they're drier than a continental martini. On a recent Sunday night at Sunset Station, Cheese and the Machine romped through a wink-nudge set that featured hits such as Nine Inch Nails "Closer," (made savvy and amicable), Blink 182's "What's My Age Again?" (gone uptown) and Guns 'N Roses "Used to Love Her" (percolating on a Latin rhythm)--all cheerfully drained of their self-important seriousness.

But Cheese, who steps out of character as rarely as he does his tiger-print tux, says their mission is as serious as that of any "original" musician. "When Sinatra kicked off, that didn't mean the end of lounge music," he says. "Good music didn't stop in 1964 when the Rat Pack was in its heyday. So let's pick up where Frank left off. Let's pick up a microphone and continue to take the songs of the day and turn them into lounge-style versions."

His respect for the past, he says, is mirrored by his respect for the present. Pity the poor hipster who thinks Cheese is ridiculing modern music; rather, he says, his show is a celebration of their universal themes. "The emotion in these songs are the same emotions from the music of the golden age of songwriting," says Cheese. "They're still love songs, still written by the broken-hearted songwriters singing their guts out. Look at a song like 'Buddy Holly' by Weezer. That's a beautiful love song, it's got a [classic love songwriters] Harold Arlen and Jerome Kern lyric style. Or 'Creep' by Radiohead. If you read the lyrics, you realize that this is a modern take on the kind of songs being written from the '20s to the '40s."

After repeated pressing, Cheese, true to form, admits it might be wise to take his comments with a few thousand grains of salt. But one topic he's not tongue-in-cheek on is the craft involved in swankifying these popular tunes.

"Usually, we do the opposite of the original, because that really brings out the magic," he says. "But some are easier than others. Metallica's 'Enter Sandman' was always tough for us. We tried to do it in this jazzy, upbeat swing fashion, but it just wasn't working. Then I realized the lyrics of the song are a lullaby. So I tried it in a slow, serenade style, singing as if to a slumbering babe, and we really turned the corner on that tune."

For a band with such chops--indeed, if the schtick gets old, the tight arrangements demand a second visit--it's a wonder they're not writing their own tunes. Cheese balks at the idea. His band, he says, is quite happy being originally unoriginal.

"Anyone trying to write good songs these days faces an uphill climb, because there are so many good professional songwriters out there. It's almost silly to try and write better than Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails or the White Stripes. As for us, what we sacrifice in originality, we make up for by delivering solid, successful, kid-tested, mother-approved material."

And the crowd--youthful and playful, reveling in the grabby, gabby lounge singer's antics as he works the crowd (read: women)--is there to accept, as Cheese takes the Rat Pack virtues of style and sang-froid and turns them on their head. When he's not hamming it up on stage, he's milling through the crowd, finding some unsuspecting gal to grind with.

"We're all about connecting with the audience through the songs," Cheese says, "and I am personally about connecting with a showgirl named Brandi. She got on stage at a show last week and danced. God, it was great. The girls in Vegas do such a good job."

Meanwhile, back in Oz

Yellow Brick Road doesn't swing its schtick nearly as hard, but the music is the real hook. While the band's raw populist appeal--Sunday night's Suncoast show looks like a chunk of Planet Junefest crash-landed in the casino--might suggest pandering, the draw is their surprisingly faithful renditions of arena-rock classics from Steve Miller Band to Aerosmith to Van Halen to Pink Floyd (Cole's guitar work on "Comfortably Numb" manages to draw his own detachment of head-nodders). Singer Brody Dolyniuk shifts just as easily from the tinny scream of Axl Rose to the gritty bass of Billy Idol to the freewheeling vocal style of David Lee Roth. Fans and bandmates call him "The Chameleon."

"They also call me the Danny Gans of rock, and, yeah, I take that to heart," says Dolyniuk, who studies and practices prospective songs to dial in the vocal inflections and mannerisms of the original artist. "Our goal is to sound as good as the original, if not better. I mean, just imagine the ultimate concerts from some of the best rock 'n' roll bands from history getting together to play, but in an intimate venue. That's what we offer."

Big shoes to fill, but the band pulls it off, a feat as formidable as writing its own songs. And hey, the attention isn't bad, either. It's a law of the universe that any guy who can play Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" will always get the stoner girl.

"We do it because it's fun, too," says keyboardist Rogers. "Being up there and feeding off this energy between the band and the crowd is just great. This hasn't seemed like a job to me yet. We have all the respect in the world for original musicians, but that doesn't diminish the creativity of what we do. After all, who wants to play to no one?"